It’s not enough just to exist, is it? I think it used to be. Definitely before the Industrial Revolution when life was toil and any downtime was spent performing home dentistry on your family. Maybe even in the ’90s. It felt like all you had to do back then was work or study and have a favourite band. Preferably something out of Seattle or Manchester. You didn’t need to have multiple hobbies and a side business, as well as a full-time job.

Hobbies are great – if they genuinely bring you joy or catharsis. You don’t need to be good at your hobby, whatever it is – poetry, crochet, mud wrestling. If you are good at it, awesome. But it won’t be long before someone suggests you turn it into another income stream.

Then the cogs begin to turn; you start wondering if this could be the way you make it to the big time, or just, you know, the way you afford to buy sourdough regularly. You start looking at what the people who’ve “made it” in your hobby space are doing. You see their prolific output and how many social media followers they have. They’re churning out 50 handmade vases, woven baskets or pet portraits a week and they’ve got their own kiln, studio, whatever. Inspired, if a little intimidated, you decide you’re going to do it, too. You will turn your hobby – your little bit of respite in this cruel world – into a side hustle. That word. Hustle. It makes my fingers feel arthritic just typing it.

Like any good small-business owner you do some competitor analysis. Suddenly the people who inspired your hobbies – the creators you used to love – are now your enemies. You want to crush them… in a friendly artisanal elderberry cordial way. Their work is so much better than yours. You kind of start to hate them. Pretty quickly the pastime that brought you so much joy is now a weight on your shoulders: you’re under pressure to produce more and better, invest in supplies, and attract an audience. Was building a social media empire part of the joy of your embroidery hobby?

Comparison is more than just the thief of joy. It’s that shitty kid at a party who pops all your balloons and puts a fist through the cake. That thing you’d been looking forward to at the end of the work day is now ruined. Every time you sit down to work (it’s now called work because that’s what it’s become), you feel a sense of dread about your output and skill. So you stop sitting down to do it. Soon enough you’re avoiding it entirely and spending your evenings obsessing over the social media accounts of the competition. And that’s when the guilt kicks in. Eventually you can’t bear to look at your hobby supplies any longer so you pack them up, along with your fantasies of fresh sourdough, and tuck them away in that cupboard of broken dreams that you avoid at all costs.

Capitalism created hobbies and it’s also ruined them. We don’t need hobbies and we certainly don’t need side hustles. If you can turn your hobby into a source of income, it’s a job. And that’s awesome. But if you just want to learn a skill or craft as a way to relax or because it interests you, that’s great too. It doesn’t need to define you. If no hobby interests you at all, that’s also fine. Just be. Exist. Birds don’t have hobbies and they’re amazing. And when you get a job and they ask you to write that fun little intro about yourself for the team, just leave it blank. We don’t all need to have a thing. Living is enough. And having a favourite band.

This rant comes straight from the pages of issue 120. To get your mitts on a copy, swing past the frankie shop, subscribe or visit one of our lovely stockists.